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Unfortunately, the uninspired phase continues! Today’s digitally-edited painting is a somewhat minimalist gothic painting that certainly isn’t the most inspired thing in the world.
As usual, this painting is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.

Unfortunately, I was feeling uninspired again. So, today’s digitally-edited painting is a minimalist “Ancient Egypt” style painting that was salvaged from the ruins of a failed gothic painting (via lots of image editing).

As usual, this painting is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.

Well, although I was still busy writing last year’s Christmas stories at the time of writing this article, I thought that I’d talk very briefly about making art today. This was mostly because I found myself feeling somewhat uninspired.

Basically, I’d made a 1980s-themed drawing that didn’t really turn out as well as I’d hoped – even after extensive editing. So, I thought that I’d try to make another piece of art instead. But, I was a little bit pressed for time and needed to come up with a good-looking painting quickly.

Luckily, I remembered the view from the kitchen window earlier that morning. Thanks to the season and the time of the day, the world outside was shrouded in wonderfully atmospheric dark blue blue light. Needless to say, this seemed like it was worth painting. But, I’d already made a painting of the same view about a month earlier:

“Kitchen Window” By C. A. Brown

So, thinking quickly, I decided that my upcoming painting would be a companion piece to that one. I could use the old painting as a reference, whilst also doing a few things differently in my new painting. Here’s a preview of it:

This is a reduced-size preview, the full-size painting will be posted here on the 5th October.

So, is this sort of thing a good strategy when you’re uninspired?

Simply put, anything that works when you’re feeling uninspired is a good thing. Plus, since you’re partially repeating what you’ve done before, then it also means that you can make a good-looking piece of art quickly too. So, as a way to make art when you’re uninspired, it can certainly work!

However, I’d advise either not doing it too often, making extensive changes or waiting as long as possible before making new versions of your existing art. The thing to remember is to set your new version apart from the old version in an immediately noticeable way, and to make sure that there’s still a decent level of variety in the art you produce.

The main advantage to waiting as long as possible is that you’ll have become a better artist (if you practice regularly) during the time gap, so a remake of a painting from say – a year or two ago- can also be a good way to show how much you’ve improved.

Still, if you’re feeling uninspired, then making a new alternative version of one of your more recent paintings can be a good way to actually make some art. Just don’t rely on this technique too often.

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Sorry for such a short, basic and rambling article, but I hope it was useful 🙂

Well, a while before I wrote the first draft of this article, I started to worry that my art was getting worse. This has mostly been because some of my recent and upcoming art has been somewhat uninspired and/or undetailed, like in this painting that will be posted here in a few days’ time.

This is a reduced-size preview. The full-size painting will be posted here on the 10th August.

Not only hadn’t I been feeling the same drive and enthusiasm as I often do when I make art, but my art was decidedly less detailed than some of the art I posted here last year, like this painting:

“Architecture” By C. A. Brown

So, what should you do if you are worrying that your art is getting worse?

1) Remember, you aren’t getting worse: Generally speaking, if you’ve made good art in the past, then you’re still capable of making art like this. You still have all of the skills that you had back then and you’ve also probably had more practice too. So, it’s very unlikely that your art skills are actually getting worse.

No, it’s probably due to something else. For example, I’d been been busy with other stuff at the time that I made some of these lower-quality paintings, so the amount of painting time I had was one reason for the quality drop. Likewise, I hadn’t found anything that really inspired me in the way that had happened with some of my past paintings. Plus, I’d sometimes ended up making paintings when I was tired (which resulted in lower quality art).

I could go on, but usually the reasons why you might feel that your art is getting worse are often time-based reasons, emotional reasons and/or practical reasons. You almost certainly still have the same skills that you used to, but there’s probably some obstacle that prevents you from putting them into practice in the way that you used to.

Sometimes, trying to work around the causes of these problems can sometimes help you to produce better art. For example, a few hours after I wrote the first draft of this article, I ended up preparing another painting and – thanks to being more awake, finding an inspiration (eg: mid-2000s nostalgia, mixed with the cyberpunk genre) and finding more time to paint – it ended up being somewhat more detailed.

This is a reduced-size preview. The full-size painting will be posted here on the 11th August.

2) Look at your really old art: Although it can be easy to compare your current art to art that you’ve made relatively recently and feel that your art is getting worse, it is extremely likely that your art is still improving in the grand scheme of things.

If you don’t believe me, then look at a “good” piece of art that you made three years ago or earlier. Compare it to one of your current “mediocre” pieces. There’s a very good chance that even today’s lacklustre art will still look at least marginally better than the distant past’s “good” art. For example, here’s a “good” painting of mine from 2014:

“Green Palace” By C. A. Brown [JULY 2014]

This old painting still looks reasonably ok, but on a purely technical and stylistic level, it isn’t really as well-developed as even the more mediocre art that I make these days.

If you’ve been making art for less than three years, then don’t worry. You’re still new to it and you’re still learning the basics. Having times when you feel less inspired, or times where you fail and make mistakes is all part of both being an artist and learning to be an artist. So, don’t worry about it and keep practicing regularly.

3) Do something “easy”: One of the best ways to restore your artistic confidence if you’re worried about the quality of your art is simply to make a piece of art that requires very little in the way of creative inspiration, which can be made relatively easily and which will automatically look better than your “ordinary” art.

Although this type of art varies from artist to artist, I usually find that art based on pre-existing things is very useful for this. If you know how to copy from sight, then making still life paintings or even studies of historical paintings ( just make sure that they’re out of copyright, and that you acknowledge the original artist) can be a great way to produce good-looking art when I’m going through an uninspired or mediocre phase.

So, making an “easy” type of art – whether it’s still life paintings, fan art, landscape painting, studies of old paintings etc… can be a good way to reassure yourself if you’re starting to worry that your art is getting worse.